Once the niche domain of select, pure-play streamers, streaming has matured into ubiquity by meeting a critical audience need: choice.

Teeming with an array of live, on-demand and ad-supported options to complement traditional subscription options, streaming has transformed television viewing light years beyond its origins as an online replacement for physical movie rentals. And audiences have followed. In September, streaming—in all of its flavors—accounted for 36.9% of total TV usage, a new high water mark and up from 27.7% a year ago¹.

Perhaps more important, however, is the blurring of the lines between different media offerings, amplifying the need for comparable measurement even more. YouTube, for example, has historically existed largely in the social media realm, providing individual content creators a platform to upload and share their own video content. But with its existing footprint and the ongoing adoption of YouTube TV, YouTube is steadily growing as both a video sharing platform and virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD). In September 2022, YouTube (including YouTube TV) accounted for 8% of total TV usage¹.

To keep pace with audiences, advertisers are pivoting. Market research company Insider Intelligence forecasts that U.S. connected TV (CTV) spending will total $18.9 billion this year, with one-third being spent during the annual TV upfronts. And in contrast to the early days of streaming, ad-supported options—from pure-play streamers, traditional media companies and platforms like YouTube—are blossoming. In September 2022, for example, linear streaming from MVPD apps and vMVPDs accounted for 14.5% of all streaming¹. 

The growth of linear streaming speaks to how varied options have become, accompanied by an assortment of nuanced acronyms to boot (e.g., FAST, AVOD, vMVPD, OTT). But the alphabet soup is far less important than the aggregate impact that streaming is having on audiences and the content that’s resonating with them.

That’s where the appeal is for advertisers—reaching audiences that aren’t just watching traditional, linear television. While there is no denying the mass reach of traditional television, it’s clear that CTV is now a viable, scalable complement to it. Today, audiences use a range of devices interchangeably to tap into an ever-growing range of platforms, services and experiences.

In first-quarter 2022, for example, U.S. adults spent nearly as much time on TV-connected devices as on their mobile devices, both now far eclipsing the time they spend on their computers².

As video advertising fragments to follow consumption, marketers need a reliable view into each touchpoint as well as an understanding of how each disparate piece ladders into complete consumer journeys—all while ensuring that individual people aren’t being measured multiple times. And because the lines between linear and digital continue to blur, measurement should no longer be specific to linear or digital. It should be continuous, automatic and comparable.

The good news is that it can be. Marketers no longer need to enable or tag individual campaigns—or rely on point-in-time metrics. They can simply “turn measurement on.” Continuous, “always on” measurement is a major comparability advancement, as it provides advertisers and agencies the ability to assess cross-media campaign performance on an even playing field. Continuous measurement also provides increased impression data, facilitating easier reach and frequency management, as well as the ability to make adjustments while campaigns are still in market.

The influx of ad-supported services and ad-available options within multi-tier platforms highlights the clear need for comparable, deduplicated campaign measurement across the digital landscape. Our YouTube example from above presents a relevant and real-time use case, especially as it has grown its share of total TV usage nearly 40% on a year-over-year basis and claimed the largest percentage of TV usage among streaming providers in September¹.

The upside in this case for advertisers and agencies is that YouTube has already enabled the “always on” function of Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings, which means that advertisers and agencies simply need to enable the functionality for their YouTube campaigns to begin benefiting from true cross-channel comparability within one of the market’s leading and largest ad-supported platforms.

Transformative change requires precision, attention to market needs and a focus on the future. And in today’s media landscape, measurement that is comparable and deduplicated across platforms and devices is paramount. It’s also reflective of a future state, where the focus is on the audience.

1. The Gauge, September 2022 usage data
2. Nielsen Total Media Fusion

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The term “brand” is often bandied about and rarely defined. It can be tied to reputation, value propositions or culture—but Jeff Bezos coined one great definition: “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

Simply put, your brand is how people see, experience and perceive you.

Given this dynamic, marketers have many critical roles to play—including engaging customers and driving growth. But one of the most important roles is the ongoing intentional work they need to do to define and create a compelling brand narrative that unifies their organization, resonates with customers and the market, and helps differentiate the company internally and externally across all touchpoints.

Consumers and businesses have more choices than ever and vote with their wallets every day. In a complex and dynamic marketplace, it is important for companies to be clear about their values and purpose as well as the unique product or service they bring to their audiences—including what they stand for, what they offer and how they deliver. While building brands can take time, every organization—in startup, transformation or expansion mode—should stick to four key principles throughout the process.

Be clear about who you are

A brand identity reflects everything a company is and does, and the stronger the brand, the more readily consumers, prospects and employees can engage. It’s critical that marketers and all senior leaders are closely aligned on the mission and purpose of the company and its core values. The company’s external persona and presentation should mirror its internal guiding compass to create congruence; enduring brands are built on solid foundations that allow them to stay true and consistent to engender trust and loyalty among employees and customers alike.

By building on a clear purpose, a company can more successfully define its identity and ensure its strategies and actions align. This, in turn, can create greater clarity around target audiences, key messages, brand actions and core product value propositions. Following the sale of its IQ business in 2020, my company, Nielsen, articulated a new purpose: Powering a better media future for all people. This purpose encapsulated our role (powering), our goal (a better media future) and our values (all people: inclusion). This statement also supported our tag line—“audience is everything”—the external-facing summation of our brand.

A strong purpose provides clarity and sets a bar for the brand. Support of and adherence to it will help establish credibility and trust over time and can give an organization more of a voice and distinction in the marketplace. Once a company knows what consumers want and need, and where its opportunity lies in the market, marketers may turn to market research and data to optimize brand and business-building activities.

Use market research and data to inform

As the CMO of a company that offers audience measurement media planning and marketing optimization solutions, I’ve found that consumers’ expectations of brands are ever-evolving and can leave marketers feeling as though they’re playing catch-up. With macro and micro changes occurring daily, marketers need to have a pulse on consumer attitudes and behaviors.

We should think of market research and behavioral data mining as a continuous process: one that enables companies to monitor what consumers need and expect. Marketers should look at how consumers are reacting to campaigns or promotions. With this information, they should react appropriately by making changes to current campaigns or promotions based on consumer sentiment. Fostering a two-way dialogue—e.g., through social media—can help marketers tailor messages to audiences.

For a healthy brand, insights from quantitative, qualitative and analytic efforts shouldn’t just be treated as a one-and-done activity for a branding campaign. Marketers should consider conducting quarterly brand surveys and pulse surveys, and they should ensure they’re measuring all campaigns to understand the impact on perception and behavior. They should also use any insights available from call centers, service channels and social media to inform continuous message testing.

Ensure the brand message is real

With a healthy pulse on your consumers, market and brand metrics, it is critical to execute on the value proposition that delivers while also ensuring that employees are in line with brand messaging. Consumer experience remains a powerful brand builder.

It is tempting for brands in need of change to signal the change they are pursuing through a campaign or messaging. While sometimes this is necessary—as in periods of crisis—it is always preferable to “be the brand” in tangible ways. Organizations should take action on their values and have tangible proof points of their commitments.

It’s no surprise that employee engagement is an important component of a company’s success and ability to live its brand in an authentic way. When employees are engaged and believe in the company’s mission and values, I’ve found that consumers feel it, which further cements their trust in the brand. To keep employees engaged, marketers can work with senior leaders to ensure that they are living the brand’s mission and values, which creates a trickle-down effect throughout the organization.

Share the brand story widely

With the above underway, it’s time to tell the story. All stakeholders—employees, shareholders, clients and prospects—are potential brand advocates, and the marketer’s job is to ensure those stakeholders are aware, actively considering, using and, hopefully, advocating for the brand and its products or services.

Marketers should achieve overall broad-based brand awareness and favorability while prioritizing the right audiences, campaigns, channels and messages to garner consumer consideration (and ideally purchases). While clearly there are messages and channels that lead with brand—including levers like sponsorships, social media and communications—there are also opportunities to think of brand building and acquisition goals together, as the historical purchase funnel is often condensed, with brand and acquisition happening in a mutually reinforcing and simultaneous way.

Building brands to drive business and reputation is one of the most critical roles for a marketer—a disciplined approach to understanding the brand’s purpose and value proposition and having a real-time understanding of the consumer will help them ensure success in the marketplace.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com. 

The post How to build brands that resonate appeared first on Nielsen.

During times of economic unease, there can be a knee-jerk reaction to tighten the belt and slash the budgets—especially in the marketing and advertising departments.

However, there’s also a long and storied track record of how risky this approach is. Deprioritizing marketing erodes brand share and relevance and can make it that much harder to make up for lost ground when markets bounce back.

As the classic industry idiom goes, “When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you MUST advertise.”

Marketers know this already. But, occasionally, others in the company need more convincing. And a powerful rationale is one that anticipates concerns, addresses reality and sets everyone up for success on the other side.

To that end, here are three marketing strategies that will help you acquire new customers, promote sales in the long term and adjust to dynamic and unpredictable circumstances. By following these practices—and making the right case to finance—you can protect your budgets and reinforce their impact.

Strategy #1: Double down on unique audience reach

Even during booming economic times, it’s tempting for companies to chase the low-hanging fruit of quarterly revenue. During a recession, that temptation grows even stronger as everyone’s financial anxieties start to climb. They want cash flow, and they want it now.

However, as all marketers know, revenue is the end point of a much longer sales funnel. During tough times, it’s even more important to grow your base and acquire new customers, especially as your current customers may change their spending habits.

One of the best proxies available for new customer acquisition is unique audience reach: how many unique individuals saw your campaign across different apps, sites and devices.

Unique reach is a deduplicated metric. That means it counts individuals instead of frequency, regardless of which device they’re on. Without deduplicated metrics, your ads may rack up thousands of impressions but only reach a relatively small audience.

Especially during a recession, when you want to broaden your audience, it’s critical to know if you’re actually expanding your reach or just targeting the same folks over and over. By following this metric, you can continuously optimize ad placements and select the media partners that deliver fresh eyes.

At the end of the day, you can’t convert new customers if you never reach them. In fact, a 2022 Nielsen study of 15 brands and 82 digital campaigns in the U.S. revealed that campaigns with strong target reach consistently delivered better sales outcomes.

Strategy #2: Define your audience—and then dig deeper

Audience targeting is the most important tactic for global marketers, but it becomes even more important during an economic downturn. As the C-suite looks everywhere to cut spending, you don’t want to use budget to reach an audience that wasn’t going to convert in the first place.

If you generally consider your audience to be fairly broad—Millennials living in mid- to large-sized cities—you may need to focus on a smaller niche, like single millennials between 28 and 35 living in the 20 largest metro areas who bought a sedan in the last five years and are now looking for an SUV. The pool of potential consumers may shrink, but ideally your ad resonates with more of them.

This kind of refined reach allows you to put your message in front of your ideal customer as they go throughout their day, follow them as they cruise the internet, and retarget visitors who come to your website.

To make the case for these capabilities, stress that consumers are likely to change their behavior during the economic downturn. As incomes and spending habits shift, your conception of the ideal customer may have to transform as well. To that end, traditional demographic data may not be enough to identify your core audience. A simple solution is to augment those data sets with psychographic, behavioral, purchase-based, and media consumption information.

Strategy #3: Always be ready to adjust on the fly

Ignore this advice if you’re one of the marketers who has a perfect strategy that works every time, under every economic scenario.

For the rest of us, we need to create a feedback system spanning all of our campaigns that allows for real-time adjustment, experimentation, and optimization. Because here’s the unfortunate truth: It’s easy to throw dollars at the wrong people. In fact, brands waste nearly 40% of their digital advertising on the wrong audiences, and 29% of CTV ad spend reaches off-target audiences.

The potential for wasted spend is higher during a recession when whoever we’re targeting might be in a constant state of flux (see above).

There are two great ways to spot and capitalize on advertising opportunities. The first is using in-flight metrics. Ideally, you’ve got a single tool that analyzes reach, frequency and gross rating points across platforms AND delivers data daily, regardless of the size of the campaign, the platform or even the device.

The other is by owning your marketing performance data. When you don’t, you’re dependent on outside firms that likely don’t use transparent measurement systems you can access. This is even more pronounced when your data partners work on different timelines than you. As supply chains get disrupted and inflation continues rising, trends and tastes will evolve even more quickly, and the last thing you want is to be waiting on metrics that are days or even weeks old to make crucial decisions.

To advocate for resources that open up access to near real-time performance data, emphasize that it’s difficult to predict consumer behavior when bad economic news abounds. So, despite all of your best efforts, a campaign might flounder—and isn’t it better to cut your losses and move on before tapping your quarterly budget?

To learn more about our resilient marketing solutions, explore our Audience Segments and Digital Ad Ratings offerings.

The post How to build a resilient marketing strategy and make the case to keep your budget appeared first on Nielsen.

The importance of brand awareness and new customer acquisition elevated this year among the marketers surveyed for Nielsen’s 2022 Annual Marketing Report, but there isn’t a marketer on the planet who’s not laser focused on growing their return on investment (ROI). For media sellers, increasing competition—both within specific channels and in adjacent channels—has never been higher, which adds new layers of nuance on the road to finding new growth.

Historically, media sellers have relied on two proven strategies to boost their returns:

• Acquire more of the advertising dollars being spent (e.g., gain share)
• Raise the price of their advertising (e.g., boost CPMs)

Both options require media owners to prove the attractiveness of their media, which is critical in proper ad pricing and securing a greater portion of the ad dollars being spent. 

In an ideal world, sellers would seek to grow—in perpetuity—through a combination of both strategies. The circumstances where that’s feasible, however, are few and far between. So, when considering these two options, sellers should start by assessing how their media is faring with respect to other options, and not just those within the same channel or those that are most comparable.

For example, a media owner’s television ads might be outperforming industry benchmarks, but sellers can’t afford to think too narrowly when evaluating channel and platform effectiveness. Case in point, TV remains a dominant channel for advertising, but ROI from TV has been in decline over the past two or three years. This suggests that while buyers and sellers continue to view TV favorably, the channel may be facing pricing pressure as other options drive better results.

Comparatively, paid ads on social media deliver 1.7x the short-term ROI globally of TV even though brands are spending two-thirds less on them. Given the higher ROI, social media has pricing power, allowing sellers to justifiably increase CPMs. No decisions, however, should be made based on aggregated data. ROI performance varies by market and subchannel, and the best way to maximize success is to invest in the granularity that provides case-specific guidance.

In addition to assessing channel and platform performance, media sellers should be mindful that many buyers aren’t spending enough to break through. Said differently, advertisers may pull back on spending simply because they aren’t achieving the returns they’re looking for. But when we look at data from a cross-channel analysis of planned media spending, we can see that 50% of planned investments are too low to be effective. This presents an opportunity for sellers.

Globally, the prevalence of underspending is significant. Among those that are underinvesting, the median under-investment is 52%. This gap might be too big to close in a single planning session, but those that do have the opportunity to improve their ROI by a median of 50.3%. Armed with this data, which supports higher spending, media sellers are better positioned to help advertisers and media buyers allocate their spending to better achieve their desired returns.

In thinking about advertiser ROI, media owners should be thinking about validating the effectiveness of their platforms and channels for both short- and long-term strategies. Measuring the impact of their media for both is critical, simply because channels aren’t usually able to deliver on both objectives. According to Nielsen’s Marketing Mix Models, channels deliver on both revenue and brand metrics just 36% of the time.

Driving sales and awareness is important to clients, and performance for driving brand awareness and conversion will affect how advertisers value media. Helping clients understand that channels don’t typically deliver on both may provide sellers with twice the opportunity to prove value and retain—even grow—spend from clients. 

Along these lines, sellers that only measure the impact of one business strategy may find themselves below average in that one measurement. Comparatively, media sellers that measure for both brand awareness and sales will be more likely to see a positive story most of the time. 

Globally, the importance of measuring for both objectives is highest in the Americas, where channels deliver above-average results on both objectives just 20% of the time. Comparatively, in Asia-Pacific, the percentage is much higher at 42%. When sellers measure the impact of their media on brand and sales outcomes, they’re best positioned to mitigate disappointing results from singularly focused measurement.

While many marketers are leaning into measurement tools to inform their channel and mix allotments, media owners can tap into ROI data to assess the attractiveness of their media and best position it from a pricing and ad share perspective. With an understanding about which platforms and channels deliver on the short- and long-term goals of advertisers, sellers have twice the opportunity to showcase the value and attractiveness of their media.

The post In the search for growth, what’s a media seller to do? appeared first on Nielsen.

The TV industry is big business. It always has been. But how we define “TV” is very much an evolving story, simply because viewership and engagement is no longer directly tied to a predefined schedule or static set of channel options. And while people still spend more than twice the amount of time with traditional TV than their connected TV devices, trends over the last year showcase how streaming-first mindsets are critical to success in the future.

For context, Americans increased their streaming usage by 21% between May 2021 and May 2022. That uptick, much of which happened during historically low TV viewing months, fueled a dramatic shift in total TV consumption—even though total TV viewing remained virtually unchanged. In June 2022, streaming accounted for more than one-third of total TV time, 6.3 points higher than in June 2021.

The flipside of this surge in consumption is a growing expanse of content—and platforms to host it. In the period between December 2019 and February 2022, the number of unique video content titles grew from 646k to more than 817k¹. And to complement the growth in titles, some now estimate there are more than 200 streaming services for audiences to choose from.

So, as lucrative and attractive as the streaming space is, success is far from easy. Several entities, including Deloitte, have forecasted subscriber churn amid the deluge of content and channel options, and a recent Nielsen survey found that 46% of streaming subscribers believe there are too many services available to them.

For content owners and buyers, knowing how to navigate the environment is anything but cut and dry. With so much competition—and a finite amount of time in any given day—any and all decisions could make or break whether audiences engage with a program. Said differently, going viral in the streaming space is a taller order than when audiences first coined the term “binge-watching” as streaming platforms started dropping full seasons of content all at once. 

But what if, even in an increasingly crowded space, content owners and buyers could use data to determine whether content will drive viewership—or that it might even be binge worthy? And what if these determinations weren’t limited to streaming content?

The good news is that they’re not. The even better news is that employing this type of data will benefit viewers just as much as owners and buyers—perhaps even more. After all, they’re the ones clamoring for relevant content.

Given the amount of content that’s available—and will become available—metadata becomes critical to content discovery. It can also help content owners and buyers understand why audiences gravitate to specific content. When owners and buyers know which characteristics drive engagement, they have the information they need to drive viewership—and keep it. 

So among the many characteristics to consider, which ones really factor into viewership preference and long-term engagement? And how can these characteristics actually be quantified? 

To help content owners and buyers on this front, Gracenote, the content solutions pillar of Nielsen, recently announced a new data set that can be used to optimize program licensing and acquisition strategies as TV viewership booms. These are the characteristics that shed the most light on how individual streaming and broadcast programs are consumed:

• Bingeability: Understand how many TV show episodes audiences watch per day to quantify viewer propensity to consume multiple episodes in a row.
• Loyalty: Understand how much (in minutes and percentage of) available content is viewed per month to identify viewer likeliness to stick with a program.
• Program similarity: Identify programs that resemble other programs based on lookalike thematic characteristics, viewing audiences and historical performance.

While these characteristics might be useful to some degree in determining road-tested programs with established audiences, especially as competition rises, they will be critical in assessing audience engagement with new programs. As streaming continues to account for an increasing share of total TV usage, we analyzed two new Netflix programs that debuted this year to gauge how audiences received them: Inventing Anna, which debuted in February, and The Lincoln Lawyer, which debuted in May. Both shows performed well with audiences, as they each appeared on Nielsen’s top 10 streaming list for several weeks around their respective debut dates.

When we look beyond the minutes viewed, however, we can better understand program-level engagement—and see viewers were more engaged with The Lincoln Lawyer than Inventing Anna.

Given the reception and resulting media fanfare around The Lincoln Lawyer, Netflix did announce that it greenlit a season 2 of the show. That said, the loyalty and binge scores for the program provide independent data points validating engagement. Comparatively, the Shonda Rhimes-led Inventing Anna was planned as a limited series, and therefore, no second season has been announced. But if the creators and Netflix ever change their minds and need viewer validation, the loyalty and binge scores could certainly serve that need. 

This article originally appeared on Streaming Media.

Notes

1. Gracenote Global Video Data

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With third-party cookies disappearing, it is more important than ever to make sure that your ads are reaching the intended target audience.

In addition to utilizing cookieless delivery, it is more important than ever to be able to accurately measure ad performance to confirm you’re matching ads with the right audience. Nielsen recently conducted an analysis of 82 digital advertising campaigns across 15 brands to validate that delivering the right ad to the right audience will improve ROI, confirming that audience metrics are an early indicator of campaign performance.

For marketers concerned with decreased targeting accuracy due to a cookieless future, in-flight campaign optimizations are essential for improving ad delivery performance—and increasing ROI. And every optimization effort begins with accurate measurement.

With the increase of views from connected TVs in recent years, cost per completed view (CPCV) is quickly becoming a key video KPI for advertisers. While this new metric adds a layer of complexity onto campaign measurement—combining on-target rate¹ and CPCV, which are typically measured separately—it also offers an additional opportunity for improving your campaigns. By calculating and optimizing the on-target CPCV², marketers will be able to improve in both indicators.

As an example, consider a campaign targeting males 20-34 years old consisting of digital ads placed on three sites over an 8-week period. Suppose that after the first two weeks of the campaign, Site 3 has the lowest on-target CPCV. In terms of on-target CPCV, lower costs mean more efficient ads, so in-flight campaign optimizations should be focused on lowering total CPCV. In the case of our example, the entire on-target CPCV for the campaign can be lowered by reallocating all or part of the media spend from Sites 1 and 2 to Site 3 in the latter half of the campaign.

As a result, it is possible to get more targeted viewers to watch video ads within the same budget without increasing media costs. In this example, optimizing by looking only at the CPCV would reallocate the budget to Site 1 and miss the opportunity to get more of the target audience to fully view the site.

Knowing how to optimize your campaigns is only the first step. Actually implementing in-flight changes can be a challenge, as some platforms may not allow reallocation of budget after a campaign starts. But, even in campaigns that include sites for which budget cannot be changed after launch, it’s still possible to reallocate those campaign dollars to sites that are performing well, or disburse them among delivery settings, if multiple settings are being used within a single site.

In addition to reallocation of spend, advertisers can modify ad delivery conditions to maximize those dollars. For example, lack of third-party cookies may result in low on-target rates for some campaigns. By changing your data source in-flight, you can increase your targeting accuracy and reach more of your ideal audience.

To reach more of their target audience and drive higher ROI, it’s up to advertisers to harness their creativity, and their data, in order to make the most of their marketing spend. And while campaign optimization may not be a new concept, faced with a cookieless future, advertisers need to adjust how and what they are measuring to stay ahead of industry changes—and the competition 

Notes

¹On-target rate = Percentage of total impressions that reached the target audience.
²On-target CPCV = media cost / (number of completed video views x on-target rate)
Ex: If media cost is $10,000 and 10,000 targeted views are completed, on-target CPCV is $1.

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From a budgeting perspective, global marketers planned to increase their spending across all channels as 2022 got underway, with significant emphasis on select digital channels like social media, video and display ads.

As always, marketers will be tasked to prove the validity of the billions they will put forth to boost their brands and acquire new customers. Yet while marketing technology can provide insight into the engagement with those efforts, marketers might not have insight into whether their investments are right-sized to achieve the best results.

It’s not surprising to see marketers both increasing their spending and allocating it across a growing range of channels, especially as newer channels attract new audiences. But when we think about full-funnel effectiveness, marketers should be pairing metrics like increased engagement with a channel and increased time spent with measurements that highlight what happens after audiences are exposed to content.

To better understand what level of spending might be most effective at a channel level, Nielsen recently conducted a thorough analysis of cross-channel media plans. Through the study, we found that half of media channel investments are actually too low to be effective. Said differently, if marketing teams committed the ideal, optimized amount, their returns could increase by as much as 50%.

Let’s look at this premise through the lens of planned channel spending allocation, as detailed in Nielsen’s 2022 Annual Marketing Report. Across channels, marketers plan to increase their spending the most (53%) across social media. Without specific spending amounts from brands and agencies, it’s tough to frame this discussion with actual dollar amounts. But we can assess whether brands are spending effectively based on their media plans.

Perhaps surprisingly, 43% of plans¹ are not allocating enough to social media—even though it’s the channel that marketers are most financially focused on. In fact, the median amount of under-investment in social media is 58%. When marketers optimize their spending, the median increase in ROI is 44%.

Our analysis found that optimum ROI depends on optimum spend. So instead of pulling back when ROI isn’t at a desired amount, the initial gut reaction to pull back might actually be the opposite of what should be done. The premise of “spend money to make money” holds true here. To get the best ROI, brands and agencies need to determine how much they need to spend—down to the channel—to break through.

Think about it this way: Audiences that see an ad for a new snack food two or three times during a major sporting program might see an array of ads for competing or similar products during the same event. In a crowded space, like snacks, a newcomer will likely need to advertise more than an established brand in order to become familiar with viewers. Identifying the optimal spend to break through is both the key to breaking through with audiences and maximizing your returns.

To identify optimal spending thresholds, Nielsen recently conducted an analysis of ROI observations to determine that brands need to spend between 1% and 9% of their revenue to remain competitive. The sweet spot within that range certainly varies, but when higher ROI is on the lines, it pays to get more granular.

Here’s an example: Many media plans remain very focused on traditional TV, which makes sense when you consider that live TV continues to account for twice the amount of time that audiences spend with connected TV (CTV). Even so, however, our predictive ROI research has found that 31% of media plans under-spend on TV. The median level of under-spend is notable at 41%. If brands and agencies adjusted upward, their ROI could increase by as much as 53%.

Brands consider an array of factors when they’re developing their media budgets, including ROI. Among those considerations, however, budget is critical when it comes to campaign effectiveness. And globally, brands and agencies aren’t being nearly as effective as they could be. That’s because Nielsen research has found that 50% of media plans are leaving as much as 50% of ROI on the table for the taking.

For additional insights, download our recent 2022 ROI Report.

Source:

 ¹Nielsen Predictive ROI Database, May 2022

The post Timidity is limiting your ROI appeared first on Nielsen.

When I first started playing video games, it was all about escape: escaping the pressures of school and society and disappearing into another world where I got to play a character other than myself.

As I’ve grown up and become more confident in myself and my identity as a queer man, gaming is no longer about escape—it’s about connection. It’s the way for me to keep in touch with my friends across the world, or even just down the road. And I’m not alone. Given the challenges that LGBTQ+ people face in daily life, games give us a place to be who we are, and build a community that lets us express ourselves in a safe space. 

Within those spaces, our digital avatars are how we represent ourselves, and over the past few years simulation and role-playing games in particular have been expanding their range of LGBTQ+ characters. And that inclusion is generating increased engagement—According to a recent Nielsen Games survey, LGBTQ+ gamers are 29% more likely to play role-playing games and 54% more likely to play simulation games than the general population.

While Nielsen’s most recent international LGBTQ+ report found that perceptions of LGBTQ+ inclusion in media are improving, that inclusion is skewed mostly towards gay and lesbian people. The gaming world is bucking that trend, with popular new titles like Overwatch 2 and Spirit Swap exploring other queer identities.

But gaming platforms aren’t the only way LGBTQ+ gamers are connecting. Over 40% of LGBTQ+ gamers watch video game trailers and 80% are on YouTube, giving game publishers an opportunity to advertise or join the conversation during livestreams to establish a deeper connection with the community.

This progress in LGBTQ+ representation in games is the work of many people and allies in the gaming community, but also groups like GLAAD which have been pushing for positive change across all media platforms. Social media is one of the most inclusive platforms for LGBTQ+ people and LGBTQ+ gamers are tuning in to social channels like Twitter, Discord and TikTok more than the general population.

I recently encountered Qweerty Gamers on Twitter, a non-profit focused on leveling-up LGBTQ+ representation in the gaming community. With the mental health crisis impacting so many young people, especially in the queer community, the group has been using their influence to raise awareness and support youth who are struggling. It’s a powerful way for LGBTQ+ gamers to help people in crisis, providing a safe space for connection and support.

The virtual universes in video games provide the opportunity for LGBTQ+ people to express our identity, and avatars and gaming add-ons help our digital selves reflect our real-life uniqueness. LGBTQ+ gamers spend 65% more than the general population—about $28 per month—on customized video game accessories, another way of expressing identity through shared tokens that connect you to others in the community. For LGBTQ+ gamers, gaming isn’t just about winning and losing, it’s about being all that you can be.

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Your neighborhood, your city, your country—the need to know what’s going on at any given time is inextricably connected to our survival and even, one could argue, our very humanity. That critical need to be informed has given rise to a myriad of ways in which information, specifically, what is generically called “the news,” can be accessed and consumed. From robust social media offerings, to a spider web of ways to view television—both on a big screen and on our personal devices—we can now literally watch news wherever we go.

And we do. Looking at overall viewing, news continues to hold the top spot in viewing categories. In this category, people 25-34 watch more news than any other program genre, accounting for 11% of viewing share, and people 35-54 account for an impressive 15% share¹. But the real winner in news viewing is the 55-64 demo, which, while smaller in range of years, accounts for more viewership share than each of the other two groups with a 16% share². The devotion to news viewership among adults 55-64 should be underscored…and valued for their loyalty.

Not only do older adults watch the most news, but the 55-64 year old demo brings an overall lift to impressions. By aggregating the 55-64 demo with the 24-54 key demo, total impressions from all sources—broadcast, cable, All-Other-Tuning (AOT³) and non-traditional viewing sources (non-HUT⁴) —increased by an impressive 56.5% in April 2022⁵  (up from an also impressive lift of 54.9% in April 2021).

The way we view continues to evolve: Households viewing from non-HUT sources grew 8% on a year-over-year basis, with a disproportionate amount of that change coming from people 25-34, who shifted their viewing to non-HUT sources by 10%. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the reliable 55-64 news viewers switched to non-HUT sources the least at 6%⁶. Importantly, let’s not forget that this 55-64 demo generally holds more net worth and has more discretionary income than the younger demos. ICYMI, check out this piece on the buying power of 55-64.

And consider brand loyalty— common  guidance is that the battle of the brands is fought in the early years, making the younger demos the sought-after consumer. But current studies show that the 55-64 demo, in addition to being the leading consumers of news, is also open to trying new brands. Looking at the sum of incremented, consecutive brand purchases⁷, there is very little difference between repeat brand purchases among 55-64 compared to other younger groups. All groups are declining in this metric, and therefore open to new brands within a category.⁸

Digging deeper into an example of brand loyalty in a specific and ultra-important category—automotive—data shows that people 55-64 are more likely to own multiple brands of vehicles – high-end, luxury, …the list goes on, and just gets even more impressive.⁹

As we think and plan for the future of news and monetizing the news audience, the expanded demo of 25-64 illustrates a trusted, reliable, profitable part of the equation. Yes, the world will still turn, people will find new ways to stay informed, but the 55-64 demo will continue to robustly watch and spend. And the data has shown that they have the resources to do just that.

Notes

1. Nielsen: NLTV, viewing by genre, April 2022
2. Nielsen: NLTV, viewing by genre, April 2022
3. AOT – All Other Tuning: Content that cannot be identified by codes or matching audio signatures; therefore, cannot be assigned to a final distributor (and thus a station code). In order for content to be considered the unencoded/unmatched content must originate from a HUT (households using television) device such as a TV or set top box. 2022 Nielsen Local Reference Supplement
4. Non-HUT: Not a Household Using Television source – Alternate ways of viewing TV, memory stick, camera, or portable/handheld game, as defined by HUT. 2022 Nielsen Local Reference Supplement.
5. Nielsen: NPower: Live+same day, total day % of share by total use of television, April 2021 vs. April 2022
6. Nielsen: NPower, Live+same day, total day impressions, April 2022
7. Nielsen Catalina Solutions: Brand Loyalty August 2018-July 2021.
8. Nielsen Catalina Solutions: Brand Loyalty August 2018-July 2021.
9. Scarborough USA+, 2021 Release 2: “Likelihood to own another car brand vs US Adult”.

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In late May, the U.S. military airlifted 70,000 pounds of baby formula from Europe to the U.S. to help with the national shortage. 

It was another troubling development in what has become a national supply-chain crisis that’s still affecting everything from cars to semiconductors to lumber. And that’s a problem for marketers focused on lower-funnel initiatives when products may not be available anytime soon. Should they continue executing conversion-oriented tactics when supply is low, they risk losing trust when consumers realize the brand can’t deliver on what’s been advertised. 

This current issue will eventually settle down. However, it offers a lesson that’s applicable no matter what the global supply chain looks like: Focusing on long-term brand building is just as important as short-term sales.

In tough economic times, it can be tempting to double down on immediate revenue wins. Even though it may seem counter-intuitive, now is exactly when you should be investing in your top-of-funnel marketing. 

Just as the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute has long argued, awareness (or “mental availability”) is the best path to customer acquisition. After all, who’s going to purchase your product when they’ve never heard about it in the first place? And with more people shopping online, and with the virtual shelf being infinitely longer than the one at your local grocery store, there’s more competition to beat out. 

Brand awareness is critical. On average, a 1-point gain in brand metrics such as awareness and consideration drives a 1% increase in future sales, according to Nielsen’s research. 

Plus, Americans these days are especially open to trying new products. U.S. consumers say that 12.1% of their online purchases involve a brand they hadn’t purchased before. And, even if you don’t have any inventory to sell at the moment, you can slightly tweak your lower-funnel activities to further strengthen your brand awareness and consideration.

For example, consider replacing a “Buy Now” call to action button with one that says “Sign Up for the Waitlist.” By adding customers to an email database, marketers can automatically provide updates when sought-after products are back in stock, as well as target them with other brand-building messages or even pique their interest in another set of products. 

In this way, you shouldn’t see the two parts of your funnel as at odds. Even when you’re focusing on the long-term health of your brand, both approaches work together to ultimately drive revenue.

Of course, building a strategy that effectively tackles both objectives isn’t always straightforward. Channels that are great for promoting brand equity may not be ideal for driving sales, and vice versa. Marketers need to measure the impacts of both objectives to ensure their full-funnel efforts strike just the right balance.

For more insights on how to grow brand and sales together, visit Nielsen’s Full Funnel Hub.

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